This story was written for Marigold's Challenge #12.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Merry is 19, Pippin is 11 (equivalent to 12 ½ and 7 in human maturity.)
DISCLAIMER: Middle-earth and all its peoples belong to the Tolkien Estate. I own none of them. Some of them, however, seem to own me.

THE BRANDY HALL INCIDENT

CHAPTER 1

“I don’t have the slightest idea where we are, do you Merry?” Pippin asked apprehensively.

“Of course I do,” said Merry. “I’ve often been in these old back tunnels. Frodo and I used to explore them when I was just a little sprout, younger than you are now.” Merry spoke with the slightly superior smugness of one on the cusp of tweenagehood, confident that he has left his childhood behind.

Pippin ignored the tone. He was used to it by now, and took no offense. “What are all these for?” he asked. In the Great Smials at Tuckborough, where Pippin and his family often visited, tunnels never really fell into disuse; when new ones were dug the old ones were either converted to new uses or filled in. But here in Brandy Hall, there was this whole maze of tunnels that hadn’t been used for ages.

“Well, this part we are in now are just used as mathom rooms--all the stuff we don’t use any more, or only use infrequently.”

Pippin nodded. They had lots of mathom rooms at the Great Smials. “I’ll bet there are some splendid things down here.”

“There are,” grinned Merry. He ducked into one of the rooms at the side. “Here we are--this is the room I wanted to show you.”

Pippin’s eyes grew wide. To one side of the room were stacks and stacks of things: old furniture, chests and boxes, piles of discarded linens and clothing, and piles of what could only kindly be called junk. But on the other side a wide clear area had been made, about eight feet square. It contained two rather old and battered armchairs, whose seats sagged in an alarming state of dilapidation, two boxes, turned on their sides, and stacked to make a sort of bookshelf, complete with about half a dozen books, and a couple of flat boxes. A low table that had seen better days stood between the chairs. Everything was liberally coated in dust and cobwebs.

Merry put the lantern down on the table, and picked up one of the boxes from the “shelf”. He blew the dust off.

“What’s that?” asked Pippin.

“It’s ‘Rule the Shire’,” Merry said. Holding it out for Pippin’s inspection, he could see it was a board game. “It used to be popular years ago. It was Frodo’s when he was a little lad.” Merry’s voice grew a bit sad, as it often did when he spoke of Frodo before they had ever known him, before they had even been born, when he had his own parents and his own life.

“Anyway,” he continued briskly, “we used to come down here to get away from everybody. We’d play the games--” he pointed to the other box, which Pippin discovered held a draughts game “or Frodo would read to me.”

Merry gave him a lop-sided grin. “This is where we’d hide out when we raided the larder, or when we wanted to get out of doing work. Frodo called it our ‘retreat’.”

Pippin looked at his older cousin, green eyes alight. “Oh Merry! This is ever so grand!” He touched the dusty box Merry held. “Could we play? Is it a hard game?”

“I don’t see why not.” Merry looked around. “But first we need to do something about all this dust. We used to keep a broom and a duster handy--there they are!” He went over to the side with the piles, and retrieved a decrepit broom and a somewhat moulty duster.

They soon had cleared the little “sitting room” of its accumulation of the ages, and Merry set forth the game. He stopped when Pippin had a coughing spell. “Are you all right, Pip?” he asked worriedly.

“I’m fine, Merry, really. It’s just the dust. How do you play this?”

Soon Merry was involved with the intricacies of explaining the game, which involved tiny wood hobbits, cleverly carved, as playing pieces, little imitation coins, and dice. “You roll the dice to move around the board, and do as directed on the squares where you land. You get rewarded with the coins, which you can use to buy ‘property’; the first person to buy up all four farthings wins.” Merry frowned. “I used to tell Frodo I thought it was awfully unfair that the game did not include Buckland.”

“What did Frodo say?” asked Pippin, curious. He always enjoyed hearing Merry talk about those days before he was born, when Frodo had still lived at Brandy Hall.

Merry laughed. “He said ‘the hobbits who made the game knew better than to think anyone but Brandybucks could rule Buckland.’ And of course he was right.”

They played the game until their stomachs told them it was time for luncheon.

“Next time we come, we’ll have to bring some food with us,” said Merry.

“Can we come back after luncheon?” asked Pippin hopefully. He had been doing well on this round of the game--he already owned the Northfarthing, and had bought up about half the property of the West Farthing.

“No, I’m afraid not, Pip. I have to go see Uncle Dinodas after luncheon for lessons.”

Pippin’s face fell. He was still young enough that he only had lessons from either his sister Pearl when he was at home, or from Merry when he visited here. So far, all he’d had to do was learn to read, write and cipher. But in a couple of years, he’d have to start having some harder lessons, probably from his father, as they’d no older uncles or cousins living at Whitwell. Now that Merry was almost a tweenager, he had to have his lessons almost every day. His great-uncle Dinodas had tutored most of the younger Brandybucks, including Merry’s father Saradoc.

“That’s all right, Pippin. We’ll come back tomorrow. It’s Highday, then, and no lessons.” Merry picked up the lantern and held it up. As he did so the light gleamed briefly on a partially boarded up door.

“What’s that, Merry? Where does that door go?”

Merry glanced over at it. “Oh, that just leads into the really abandoned part of the tunnels. There’s nothing back there at all anymore. They were found to be unsafe. That’s why this whole wing is unused now.”

“Do you think maybe there could be treasure or something hidden back there?” Pippin’s voice was avid. His curiosity had been aroused.

Merry looked down at him. “Pip,” he said sharply, and in no uncertain terms, “there is *nothing* back there. It is dangerous and unsafe and a hazard. Do *not* even think about going back there. Do you understand me?”

Pippin looked up at his cousin. “I understand.” But in his mind he was thinking, I’m not promising. There might be treasure back there or all kinds of other interesting things. He was a Took, and curiosity was not an itch he liked to leave unscratched.

xxxxx

The cousins went to luncheon in the main dining hall, where they sat at one of the children’s tables and applied themselves seriously to the food.

Merry was nearly finished when he heard his name. He looked over his shoulder to see his cousin Berilac, who was a couple of years older.

“Merry, we’d better be going. Uncle will be waiting.”

Merry stood up. “I’m coming Beri.” He reached down and ruffled Pippin’s hair. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Pip.”

Pippin broke off from his teasing of little Cousin Celandine. “All right, Merry!” He turned back to the lass; it was fun watching her squirm and make faces as he described in gory detail the squashed frog he had found by the pony paddock.”--and it was flat as a griddlecake, and its insides were all oozing out…”

“Oooh, yuck!” Celandine screwed up her seven year old face in disgust.

Merry and Berilac chuckled as they walked away. “Evil-minded little beast, isn’t he?” asked Beri.

“Weren’t we all at that age?” smirked Merry. “Celly’s not half so horrified as she sounds, either.”

The two made their way to one of the upper levels, where Dinodas Brandybuck had his apartment. Berilac rapped on the door.

“Come in, lads,” came his voice.

They went in. “Good afternoon, Uncle Dinny,” they chorused.

“Take your seats. No need to waste daylight.”

The two young hobbits sat down at either end of a wide oak table that stood by the window. The room was filled with bookshelves overflowing with books and papers. The only room Merry had ever seen to compare with it was Cousin Bilbo’s study at Bag End.

Dinodas placed some papers in front of each of them. “Here is your work from yesterday, with your mistakes marked. Please re-copy it correctly. Meriadoc that is excellent work; when you finish, take down the “History of Buckland”, and read the chapter on Gorhendad Oldbuck, and then write an essay about why he changed the family name. Berilac, when you have finished your corrections, I have some sums for you to work on. You need a good deal of work on your mathematics.”

The two lads buckled down to their work in silence. Soon the only sound heard was that of pages being turned, and quills scratching on paper. Dinodas sat down in an armchair with a book, but every so often he would put it down and go to check over their shoulders, and murmur some advice or corrections. These two were his brightest students, and needed very little in the way of supervision.

xxxxx

After luncheon, Celandine’s brothers Doderic and Ilberic asked Pippin to come play kick-the-ball with them. Pippin went out with them, but the game quickly deteriorated into a row between the two brothers as to which one got to have Pippin on his team. Disgusted, Pippin solved the problem by leaving. Pippin decided cousins were better than brothers. He and Merry never had rows or quarrels. Sometimes he got cross at Merry if he treated him too much like a baby, but Merry was never angry at him--well, that one time, when he was eight, and got stuck up a tree. But he was too young then to realize what he knew now: how Merry was afraid of heights.

And they would never row over something as silly as games.

Pippin felt a bit bored. Yesterday after luncheon he’d had his fiddle lesson from Aunt Esme. But she was busy today with the head cook, planning out next week’s meals. And tomorrow there were guests from the East Farthing, so it would be Sunday before she could give him another lesson. He supposed he could go practice playing his fiddle, but so far he only knew three songs, and that got a bit tiresome after a while.

Heading back into the Hall, Pippin thought of the game he and Merry had left unfinished in the old mathom room. Perhaps he’d go back down there for a while, just until Merry got done with his lessons.

 xxxxx

Uncle Dinodas dismissed Merry and Beri as soon as they had completed their assigned work for the day. “I will see you both after luncheon on Sunday,” he reminded them. “Merry, please finish reading that next chapter in the history before then, and Berilac, I want to see those corrected sums when you return.”

As they left their tutor’s room, Berilac asked Merry, “Do you want to come down to the River with me? We’ve time for a swim before tea?”

Merry nodded. “Let me check and see if Pip wants to come; I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

Beri rolled his eyes behind Merry’s back, but did not say anything. As fond as he was of Merry, he just did not understand why his cousin always wanted that child to tag along everywhere he went. But he had learned not to say anything. If Merry had to choose between young Pippin’s company and Berilac’s, he’d choose the younger every time. And Pip wasn’t so bad, really, even if he never seemed to shut up.

Merry went down to the main hall, and began asking around about Pippin.

“Oh, Merry,” said his cousin Seredic’s wife Hilda, who was Celandine’s mother, “I saw Pippin going off to play ball with Dody and Ilby right after lunch.”

Merry nodded, “That’s all right then,” and took himself off to the River to meet Beri. It was just as well Pip had found someone else to amuse himself with for a while. Berilac never said anything, but Merry knew he sometimes got tired of Pippin tagging along. Still, Merry was a bit disappointed; it was unusual not to find his little cousin waiting for him after he finished his lessons.

 xxxxx

Merry and Berilac had an enjoyable time in the water, and when their stomachs told them it was nearly teatime, they gathered up their garments, got dressed and headed back to the Hall. On the way, he saw Doderic and Ilberic.

“Dody, Ilby? Where’s Pip?”

The two of them stared at him. “We don’t keep him in our pockets, Merry,” said Doderic impertinently. “He went off on his own, right after lunch.”

“Your mother told me he was with you!”

“Well, he came out with us, but then he took off.”

Merry looked worried. That was a bit strange.

“Come on, Merry!” said Berilac, “you know he’ll turn up at tea. That lad would never miss a meal.”

Merry nodded, relieved. Pippin’s stomach was more accurate than any clock.

 xxxxx

Merry made his way to his family’s private sitting room, where they usually took tea together. Pip always had tea with them when he came to stay.

His parents were already waiting for him.

Esmeralda looked up, and said “Merry, where’s Pippin?” simultaneously, Merry asked “Mum, where’s Pip?”

The three Brandybucks looked at one another in alarm. It was unheard of for Pippin to miss a meal.

Merry pursed his lips and thought for a moment. “I think I know where he might be, Mum. I’ll go look for him.”

Saradoc nodded, and Merry turned and headed back out. He was sure that Pippin must have gone back down to the “retreat”.

 xxxxx

Sure enough, one of the lanterns kept by the entry to the back tunnels was missing. He took another and lit it and headed unerringly for the little room. He was more than a little annoyed at Pippin for this. He had really not thought the lad would come down here without him.

But when he entered the mathom room, there was no sign of Pippin--no, the game was not as they had left it. He had been back. Merry raised the lantern higher and cast its light around the room, with a sense of foreboding.

A set of dusty little footprints led directly to the boarded up door. One of the boards was pulled loose. There were no footprints coming back out.

Merry went over and bent down, stuck the lantern in and called: “Pippin! Pip!”

His heart plunged; there was no answer but echoes.

More frightened than he could ever recall being before, he turned and raced to find his father.